The UK visit this week by Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, has met with outrage and condemnation among human rights groups. While Modi promotes India as an industrial Hi-Tech hub abroad, he has allowed mob rule and impunity to reign at home, argues Aisha Maniar.

2013 saw hunger strikes by detainees held without charge or trial at Guantánamo Bay and immigration removal centres in the UK. In spite of worsening conditions and growing desperation, in both cases, the response was further repression. Parallels can be drawn.

For the past few weeks, prisoners have been on hunger strike against indefinite detention at Guantánamo Bay and against prolonged solitary confinement in California. Yet their peaceful protests have been met with repression and at least one possible fatality. Now is the time for international solidarity.

In October 2012, British citizens Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan lost their battle against extradition to the US. They have since been held in pre-trial solitary confinement at a “supermax” prison. What is solitary confinement, and why do so many consider it to be torture?

The “war on terror” has provided a blanket for states around the globe to commit and collude in human rights abuses, particularly of vulnerable minorities. Aisha Maniar reports on the extraordinary case of Rasul Kudaev.